A Gift

"You're going back there again?"

Natasha rolled her eyes profoundly, thankful that her back was to Clint as she pressed the button to call the elevator. She'd been visiting Loki regularly, every couple of days for the past two weeks, and she really felt like she was gaining some ground with him. Of course, her partner really didn't like it, at all. She understood why Clint would be upset about her going out of her way to regularly meet with the person who had essentially mind-controlled him into killing plenty of good agents that he used to work with, but frankly she was getting to the point where she really wanted him to fuck off about it. Fury had already given her orders.

"You turned the tables on him last time when we needed you to. If anyone can figure out what he's up to or what we're dealing with, it'll be you."

Clint didn't need to know that sometimes she visited Loki more for herself than for Fury, or that tonight was one of those nights.

"I don't like it, Nat. He's got something up his sleeve and getting to you—" Clint started again, but she cut him off.

"Will give me a better idea of what he's planning. Seriously, I know what I'm doing," she assured him, doing her best to keep the irritation out of her voice. She'd already shouted at him about this once, she didn't feel like doing it again at work.

Still, Clint wasn't deterred. "At least tell me what you've been talking about," he said, clearly frustrated.

The elevator doors slid open silently ahead of her, and Natasha stepped inside. "Base level two," she stated firmly.

A cool, automated female voice asked, "Identification?"

"Shadow. Romanoff, Natasha A," she replied and then directed her eyes to Clint once more. "You don't have the clearance," she told him flatly as the doors closed over his angry, disappointed expression.

She would pay for that comment later, but her thoughts were already directed underground, to the upcoming conversation with the god allowing himself to be caged.

When the elevator doors slid open once more, she walked out into the narrow, dark hallway and made for the light that shone at the very end. The corridor was lined with thick, reinforced steel doors concealing interrogation rooms, but the glass-fronted cell Loki was being housed in was a new addition. The glass was the same type that was used in the manufacturing of the cage engineered to contain the Hulk on the helicarrier, added to the room so that everything Loki did could be observed from the outside as well as by the cameras positioned in the high corners. Unfortunately they had no technology to nullify magic, but as Natasha understood it Thor had commissioned something on Asgard to help with that. It was only a matter of time before it was finished.

She walked up to the center of the thick pane of glass, hands behind her back, one closed over her slender wrist, and said, "Good evening, Loki."

"Agent," he replied, rising to his feet. They played this game each time she came to visit him. As he approached her, he asked, "Have you nothing better to do than keep me company night after night?"

"Well, tonight I brought you something to help relieve the boredom, but I can leave if you're getting tired of me," she answered easily, giving a shrug of her slight shoulders.

An intrigued smile played over Loki's lips and his eyebrows lofted. "In that case, do stay. I wasn't aware that it was customary in this realm to offer gifts to one's prisoners."

"You're not a prisoner, remember?" Natasha remarked slyly, lifting her chin a hair.

Loki's smile curled further upward as he purred, "So you continue to needlessly remind me. If I am no prisoner, what do you consider me?"

Natasha tilted her head to the side and regarded Loki for a few moments, actually needing to make up her mind on that particular point. At length, she delicately answered, "An unwanted house guest."

"That was a bit rude."

"You're a bit rude."

"Am I?"

"Alien war."

"Point taken."

"I thought so," Natasha said with a small smile. It wasn't uncommon for them to have conversations like this anymore, almost like they were getting along with one another.

"Your gift?" Loki prodded, raising his eyebrows once more. He looked awfully expectant to Natasha, and she couldn't help but wonder if it was the boredom prompting him to be so curious about what she'd brought for him or if it was his greedy nature.

"Someone's excited," Natasha remarked, half chuckling when a flash of irritation darted across Loki's face. She didn't pause to let him get a word in, however, and instead pressed on, "Trade me for it."

"Are you familiar with gift giving, Agent Romanoff?" Loki asked, his eyes narrowing somewhat shrewdly.

Natasha simply smiled in response. "Answer one question and you'll get your present."

Loki seemed to consider this for a moment, but he ultimately let the corner of his mouth drift upward and nodded, "Go on."

"Last year—why did you use the Chitauri?"

Natasha watched as Loki's expression became somewhat withdrawn. The emotion, or at least the clever grin, dropped out of his face and he regarded her almost coldly. Evidently he'd been hoping for a question that he could have talked his way around, not one so direct as the one she'd chosen. Nevertheless, after a moment passed he carefully countered, "Does it not follow that conquering a planet may require an army?"

"Well, I've been thinking about it," Natasha continued easily, "and no, it really doesn't. Thor is the warrior. You use tricks, illusions. You escaped S.H.I.E.L.D with the Tesseract and kept it out of our reach. After that, you could have easily snuck back in, impersonated Fury, people higher up than Fury, and taken us down. You could have ruled Earth without shedding a single drop of blood if you wanted to."

"Perhaps I didn't want to," he said, but Natasha didn't believe it. Somehow the words lacked conviction. She was silent, however, as he went on, "The Chitauri were a condition of the bargain. A fail safe, if you will."

Natasha nodded at the admission. It confirmed what her thoughts on the matter had been for the past few days, although it complicated more problems than it solved. Nevertheless, she allowed another smile to cross her face as she told him, "That wasn't so hard, I think." She moved over to the door and released the latch on the slot before setting the book down just inside it and returning to her former position, her arms crossed over her chest.

She watched as Loki went immediately to the door to retrieve the object, his hands shooting out for it and then hesitating just before he picked it up. Slowly his fingers closed around the volume, carefully lifting it and turning it over, inspecting the maroon and cream paperback cover. He ran his fingertips along the spine, over the title and then across the lines of the summary on the back, his expression largely inscrutable. His eyes never left the book as he made his way back over to his own position across from her, and when he stopped, he stated, "A book."

Natasha's brows lofted. "Don't like reading?" she asked, finding it doubtful. He handled the thing gently, as though he were worried it might be taken away from him, and something in his tone hinted at surprise.

"I do," he said softly, slightly defensive. A few moments passed as he finished reading the summary, at which pointed he turned narrowed, curious eyes on her. "What makes you believe I will enjoy this?"

"I don't care if you enjoy it," Natasha said frankly. "Read it or don't. I just thought you might like a distraction."

"How considerate of you," Loki remarked. Natasha had difficulty deciding whether or not the words were genuine, but she tried not to let it bother her as she shrugged by way of a response. The god regarded her for another long moment before he added, "I suppose we shall see whether Midgardian literature is of any value."

"I suppose we will. Goodnight, Loki," Natasha answered, the corner of her lips pulling upward again briefly before she turned and walked away. Loki mumbled something behind her back but she couldn't hear what it was; he didn't usually answer her when she turned to leave for the evening so she was almost tempted to look back at him, but she made herself walk on.

The game they were playing was too delicate for her to give him the impression that her curiosity about him was growing. She had been far too careful all this time about not reacting to him, about making it completely clear that he had no affect on her to reveal now that he did affect her, only not in the way he wanted to. As the elevator doors whispered shut in front of her and began to pull her up to the ground level of the complex, her eyes watched Loki turn his gift over between his hands in the silvery walls. He looked so apprehensive, defensive even, as though by giving him the book she were trying to trick him somehow. It was true that the gift was a bit of a play on her part, an attempt to get under his skin just like everything she'd said to him so far, but for some reason the care he took when examining it and the distrustful way he'd regarded her stuck in her mind.